Murder in the Forum
Read Murder in the Forum Online
Authors: Rosemary Rowe
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Contemporary, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Historical, #Contemporary Fiction
Rosemary Rowe
Copyright © 2001 Rosemary Aitken
The right of Rosemary Rowe to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
First published as an Ebook by HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP in 2013
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
British Library Catalouing in Publication Data
Rowe, Rosemary
Murder in the forum
1. Libertus (Fictitious character) – Fiction 2. Romans – Great Britain – Fiction 3. Slaves – Fiction 4. Great Britain – History – Roman period, 44 BC–449 AD – Fiction 5. Detective and mystery stories
I. Title
823.9'14[F]
eISBN: 978 1 4722 0507 0
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
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Table of Contents
Rosemary Rowe is the maiden name of author Rosemary Aitken, who was born in Cornwall during the Second World War. She is a highly qualified academic, and has written more than a dozen bestselling textbooks on English language and communication. She has written fiction for many years under her married name. Rosemary has two children and also two grandchildren living in New Zealand, where she herself lived for twenty years. She now divides her time between Gloucestershire and Cornwall.
The Germanicus Mosaic
A Pattern of Blood
Murder in the Forum
The Chariots of Calyx
The Legatus Mystery
The Ghosts of Glevum
Enemies of the Empire
A Roman Ransom
A Coin for the Ferryman
For my daughter
Murder in the Forum
is set in 187 AD, when most of Britain had been for almost two hundred years the northernmost province of the hugely successful Roman Empire: occupied by Roman legions, subject to Roman laws and taxes, criss-crossed by Roman military roads, peppered with military inns and staging-posts, and presided over by a provincial governor answerable directly to Rome. The revered Emperor Marcus Aurelius was dead, and the Empire in the hands of his increasingly unbalanced son Commodus, who was more interested in excesses, debauchery and gladiatorial spectacles (in which he liked to take part) than in the business of government. This led to enormous power being left in the hands of the Prefects of Rome, including Tigidius Perennis – the notional kinsman of the fictional Perennis Felix who features in this book.
The political tension which underlies the story, therefore, is historically attested and so are many of the political events alluded to in it. The rebellion of the lance-bearers of Britain, the consequent fall of Perennis, the appointment of Helvius Pertinax as Governor of Britain, and Commodus’s suspicion of everyone around him are all a matter of record. Indeed, Commodus may well have had cause to fear – his own sister had earlier attempted to have him assassinated, and some British legionaries did indeed favour Pertinax to take his place, although Pertinax – as suggested in the narrative – quelled the conspiracy firmly and denounced the ring-leaders.
Commodus was more than Emperor; he regarded himself as a living god, the reincarnation of Hercules, and as such received the tributes and sacrifices of the people. His word was absolute. Any man carrying an imperial warrant carried the Emperor’s authority and therefore wielded considerable power. The wax seals which identified such documents were so important that they were often protected by ornate ‘seal boxes’ when in transit: failure to honour a duly-sealed warrant could carry the death penalty.
Of course, for most inhabitants of Britain, such power-struggles were remote events and they were content to live their lives in the relative obscurity of the provincial towns and villages. Celtic traditions, settlements and languages remained, especially in the countryside, but after two centuries most townspeople had adopted Roman habits. Latin was the language of the educated, and Roman citizenship – with its commercial, social and legal status – the ambition of all. Citizenship was not at this time automatic, even for freemen, but a privilege to be earned (for those not lucky enough to be born to it) by service to the army or the Emperor, although slaves of important citizens (like Libertus) could be bequeathed the coveted status, along with their freedom, on the death of their masters.
However, most ordinary people lacked that distinction: some were freemen or freed-men, scratching a precarious living from a trade or farm; thousands more were slaves, mere chattels of their masters, with no more status than any other domestic animal. Some slaves led pitiful lives, though others were highly regarded by their owners: indeed a well-fed slave in a kindly household might have a more enviable lot than many a freeman struggling to eke out an existence in a squalid hut.
Roman civic building was very fine, even to the modern eye, and private mansions often boasted splendid mosaic pavements, under-floor heating, upper floors and even latrines. Town dwellings and apartments, however, usually lacked kitchens, and most town-dwelling Romans simply bought their food at the take-away stalls and tavernas which abounded in all centres of habitation. Wealthy men, such as Gaius in the story, might have kitchens, often mere annexes to the main building (because of the risk of fire) and built on the downhill of the house next to the latrine – in order to utilise the running water, where that was available. The presence of such a kitchen might well influence the choice of appropriate accommodation for a visiting dignitary – Roman banquet cooking was legendary for its splendour. (Country houses, which wealthy citizens such as Marcus possessed in addition to their town dwellings, were always equipped with elaborate kitchen blocks and it seems that many Celts continued to try to cook in their houses over an open fire, although chimneys were not commonplace. Most towns had a form of fire brigade.)
There was, however, no civic rubbish collection – hence the pile of bones and waste outside of Gaius’s house. Middens are attested in the back streets of several towns at this time, although it appears that enterprising farmers came (at night, when wheeled transport was permitted within the walls) to collect the stinking stuff to fertilise their fields, or it was slowly washed into the river by the rain.
Power, of course, was vested almost entirely in men: although individual women might wield considerable influence and even own and manage large estates, females were excluded from civic office, and indeed a woman (of any age) remained a child in law, under the tutelage first of her father, and then of any husband she might have. Marriage officially required her consent (indeed she was entitled to leave a marriage if it displeased her, and take her dowry with her), but in practice many girls became pawns in a kind of property game since of course there were very few other careers available for an educated and wealthy woman. So girls were married, or married off, for the sake of a large dowry or to cement political alliances. The daughters of rich families, particularly ugly girls (such as Felix’s wife), were undoubtedly at a greater disadvantage in this regard than their poorer, and prettier sisters.
The Romano-British background in this book has been derived from a wide variety of (sometimes contradictory) written and pictorial sources. However, although I have done my best to create an accurate picture, this remains a work of fiction and there is no claim to total academic authenticity. Commodus, Pertinax and Prefect Perennis are historically attested, as are the existence and (basic) geography of Corinium (modern Cirencester), Glevum (modern Gloucester) and Letocetum (modern Wall in Staffordshire).
Relata refero. Ne Iupiter quidem omnibus placet.
(I only tell you what I heard. Jove himself can’t please everybody.)
OMAN
B
RITAIN
The man lying outside the basilica was dead. Messily dead, the way a person is apt to be when he has been dragged for miles at the wheels of an official Roman carriage. As this man had obviously been.
This was not a clever deduction on my part. The official Roman carriage in question was standing right in front of me, and the unfortunate victim was still attached to it, his hands bound to his sides, so that he could not protect his face, and the chains just long enough to protract the agony, allowing him to stumble after the cart until his heart was bursting, and then when he tripped – as he inevitably would – dragging him remorselessly headlong. The official Roman who must have given the instructions was still sitting smugly inside his conveyance.
I looked at the hapless corpse and blanched. Not at the battered head and bloodied limbs – I had seen men executed this way before – but at the remnants of uniform which still adhered to the body. That scarlet tunic and golden edging meant one thing only: the wearer was a servant of my patron, Marcus Septimus Aurelius, the regional governor’s personal representative. In fact, I suspected that I knew the victim. It was hard to be sure, of course, after such a death, but I thought it was a rather pompous young envoy whom Marcus had once sent with me when I was investigating a crime: an arrogant, self-important youth, vain of his pretty looks.
Not any more.
I glanced at the smug Roman. Of course, he was a stranger (and carrying an official warrant to travel, or the carriage would not have been permitted within the gates during the hours of daylight), but one didn’t have to hail from Glevum to see that the man he had executed was no ordinary slave. Anyone sporting that fancy uniform was clearly the cherished possession of a particularly wealthy and powerful man. So either the man in the carriage was a passing imbecile who had lost the will to live, or he was a very important personage indeed.
He saw me gawping. ‘Well?’ He threw open the door of his carriage. I realised that up until now he had been waiting for someone to do it for him, though his carriage-driver attendant was nowhere in evidence. He didn’t get out. ‘You! You are here to attend on Marcus Aurelius Septimus?’
I gulped. There was no simple answer to this. Yes, I was there on my patron’s business, I had just been visiting his official rooms, but I was not exactly ‘attending’ him since he was twenty-odd miles away, doing a bit of ‘attending’ of his own. Marcus had recently lost his heart – or at least his inhibitions – to a wealthy widow in Corinium and he was there again, doubtless neglecting the affairs of state to pursue affairs of a more personal nature. I pondered my reply. The man in the carriage did not look as if he would have time for fine distinctions.